Since Election Day, Jello Biafra has been working on an open letter to President-Elect Barack Obama. We're submitting the letter via Change.gov, the Obama administration's transition website, on Jello's behalf. We posted the letter in its entirety at:

We have a last minute confirmation that Jello Biafra will be on Pirate Cat Radio tonight (11/5) at 8pm PST for MonkeyMan's show. Other guests will include Matt Gonzalez, Ralph Nader's running mate and former SF Board of Supervisors president, and Ross Mirikarimi, current SF Supervisor for District 5. This will be a discussion and analysis of Election 2008.

You can listen to the broadcast by tuning in to 87.9FM in San Francisco and Los Angeles. If you live in San Francisco, you can go to the Pirate Cat Radio studio, which is also a cafe, at: 2781 21st Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. The show will also be streamed live at the Pirate Cat Radio website and will be archived on the site as a podcast.

1. I remember someone else who had the audacity to misuse peoples' Hope when they were desperate for a change, and his name is Bill Clinton. Let's not forget it was not Bush but Clinton who gave us
NAFTA, the WTO, the Telecom Act of 1996 that opened the floodgates for Clear Channel and Fox News, and laugh out loud Abstinence-only sex "education." Clinton signed Newt Gingrich's cruel welfare reform bill at the urging of Al Gore. And, yes, it was Clinton who planted the seeds of the economic meltdown when he gleefully deregulated the banks.

If Obama turns out to be another Clinton - and surrounding himself with Biden, Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin and Zbigniew Bzrzinsky is not a good sign - I fear he will break the hearts of whole energized
generation of voters who won't feel it's worth it to participate again.

2. When Clinton got in, people rejoined "Ding Dong, Bush is gone. Now
we can finally sleep at night" - and went to sleep for the next 8
years! We can't rest easy and sleep this time. There will be no change
from Obama or a congress of corporate-owned Democrats unless we
increase the pressure and keep a blowtorch up their ass the whole time
they're in power. We need leaders, not more deal makers, Nancy Pelosi
and Harry Reid (remember him?) need to be replaced with people who actually give a shit.

We stopped Vietnam. We torpedoed the Gulf War. Our civil rights and
environmental awareness as we know them today didn't happen because our corporate lords granted the peasants new rights out of the goodness of their corporate hearts. They don't have any. We got where we are because we got together and fought for it. Same for the New Deal. It was us.

And the only thing standing in the way of more wars, more Abu Ghraibs and more Guantanamo Bays coming soon behind a Wal-Mart near you is us.

Jello Biafra and Matt Gonzalez
People Fighting Back!
Friday, October 24, 8pm
2060 Valley Life Sciences Building on the UC Berkeley Campus
FREE!
Sponsored by Students for Ralph Nader at Berkeley and the Campus Greens.

10/01/08: Jello & Vale on Presidential Politics & Punk!
This Thursday, October 2nd, it's a discussion between Vale of RE/Search and Jello Biafra about Punk, Presidential Politics, and Art! The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session.

7pm, all ages, at 924 Gilman in Berkeley, CA. It's a benefit for the progressive Berkeley Rent Board Slate. You can find out more info about the Slate, which includes Jesse the AT Mail Male (!) at here & here on My Space!

08/28/08: Denver DNC Newsflash 2

Jello called us from Denver today. He wondered what possessed Hillary Clinton to wear her trademark pantsuit in "prison jumpsuit" orange. He was also appalled that as a woman, she didn't address reproductive rights and remind the audience how horrible a McCaine Supreme Court would be.

Jello said the only big protest march was one held by Iraq Veterans Against the War, which drew 3000 people according to media estimates (AlterNet says 7000, IVAW says 10,000 btw). There was a standoff between the IVAW marchers and the Denver police, but eventually an IVAW rep was allowed to cross into the convention grounds to present a letter to a representative from the Obama campaign.

The city of Denver apparently received $50 million in grants for all the security measures they had to take for the convention. While there are miles and miles of fencing that block off open areas and dump trucks blocking strategic intersections, Jello wonders who pocketed most of the money because it couldn't have cost 50 million bucks. Especially considering that the biggest demonstration drew 3-10,000 people, $50M seems like overkill.

Read about the Iraq Veterans Against the War march here (AlterNet). More about the IVAW letter presented to the Obama campaign here (CQ News). Read the letter presented to the Obama campaign here (IVAW).

08/25/08: Denver DNC Newsflash

Jello said the security is totally overblown at the DNC that even the delegates are probably exasperated by all the extra walking they have to do. He wonders how people will get to the stadium for Barack Obama's speech since the freeway by the stadium will be completely closed for security.

Jello was supposed to read a bedtime story ("Eric Meets the Moose Diarrhea Salesman" from Beyond the Valley of the Gift Police) Sunday night at the Freedom Cage (the DNC "Free Speech Zone") to protesters who are camping out. When he arrived, there were only a few folks, including three reporters. Jello eventually read his bedtime story to about 30 people. When some protesters unfurled a banner and leaned it against the chain-link fence, the police showed up to tell them it was against the rules to lean things against the fence. There is a tiny write-up about this in the Rocky Mountain News.

Jello will probably be at Freedom Cage again tonight when Tent State has a youth candidate event. We'll let you know if we get any other confirmed appearances.

08/21/08: Jello Biafra at the DNC in Denver

Of course, Jello wouldn't let the Democrats invade his home turf without a proper welcome! Right this second, the only confirmed DNC-related appearance we have for Jello is Ralph Nader's Denver Super Rally to Open the Debates on August 27 at 7pm at Magness Arena (University of Denver).

As more confirmed events roll in, we will up date our tour dates page, our Facebook profile, and our MySpace page. Yes, we desperately need to set up an RSS feed of our news and tour dates to update you in a timely manner--in the mean time, please friend us on those sites (our MySpace blog is RSSable).

To see Jello in Denver without the possibility of being tear gassed or tasered, we suggest going to the Slim Cessna's Auto Club show on August 23 at the Bluebird Theater. Jello will be the emcee at the show. Did we mention that SCAC is the best live band, like, ever?

08/11/08: Audio of Jello's talk at Last HOPE posted online.

Last month, Jello Biafra was a featured speaker at the Last HOPE conference. The audio of his talk, as well as talks from other Last HOPE speakers, have been archived at the conference website. Go to the Talks page, then scroll down to "Jello Biafra" and you can right/control click on the 16 or 64 kbps mp3 audio to download.

P.S. Last week, we confirmed Jello's appearance as a judge at the US Air Guitar Championships on August 8. He had to cancel at the last minute due to an injury. Sorry to those who were looking forward to seeing him there.

08/08/08: Jello to judge air guitar competitionJello Biafra will be one of the judges at the US Air Guitar Championship national finals. This competition is the final step in determining who will represent the US in the world championship to be held in Finland later this year. Regarding his Simon Cowell-like role, Jello says, "Today Air Guitar, tomorrow the Gong Show...and from there the world!" No word yet on whether he will indeed appear on the newly resurrected Gong Show on Comedy Central...

07/21/08: Billy Jam's Jello interview available for download!

The Internet is a beautiful thing. If you missed Billy Jam's interview with Jello on WFMU last Friday, the whole show is archived and available as a mp3 download. Go to http://archive.wfmu.org:5555/archive/BJ/ and right click/control click on the " bj080718.mp3" link near the bottom of the page to download, or just go here to listen. (Billy says it's better to use Firefox because the page can be wonky with Safari.) The playlist for the whole show is right here and you can post comments, too.

07/17/08: Jello interview on WFMU, Friday 7/18
Jello will be a call-in guest on Billy Jam's "Put the Needle on the Record" show on WFMU, one of the best freeform stations ever. The show runs from 3pm-6pm Eastern Time, Jello will be on around 5pm. Listen online at wfmu.org.

07/09/08: Jello hangs with zombies, then with hackers

Just a friendly reminder that Jello will be in the zombie flick RetarDEAD, which will premiere this weekend at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco. The film will show at the theater on July 11, 12, and 13. (There isn't a scheduledJello appearance at any of the screenings...)

Also, Jello will once again be a featured speaker at the Last HOPE conference in New York. What will Jello have to say at a conference for hackers (HOPE stands for "Hackers on Planet Earth")? Maybe he will touch upon the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, on which the Senate will vote todayish.